Python MySQLdb placeholders syntax

I'd like 开发者_StackOverflow社区to use placeholders as seen in this example:

cursor.execute ("""
    UPDATE animal SET name = %s
    WHERE name = %s
    """, ("snake", "turtle"))

Except I'd like to have the query be its own variable as I need to insert a query into multiple databases, as in:

query = """UPDATE animal SET name = %s
           WHERE name = %s
           """, ("snake", "turtle"))
cursor.execute(query)
cursor2.execute(query)
cursor3.execute(query)

What would be the proper syntax for doing something like this?

query = """UPDATE animal SET name = %s
           WHERE name = %s
           """
values = ("snake", "turtle")

cursor.execute(query, values)
cursor2.execute(query, values)

or if you want group them together...

arglist = [query, values]
cursor.execute(*arglist)
cursor2.execute(*arglist)

but it's probably more readable to do it the first way.